The cringe-worthiest moment, by a hair, was when Perry botched what should have been his most potent attack on Mitt Romney’s chronic flip-flopping. As I noted on Twitter when it happened, any random high schooler at the CPAC conference in Washington could have done better than this.

If this is how Perry’s going to take Obama on in debates, we’re in trouble. Someone inject him with some Red Bull and a dash of Herman Cain’s personality.

Video thanks to The Right Scoop. The lackluster stumbling starts at around 1:28 into the clip:

Transcript:

PERRY: “I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of…against…the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment…was it was..before he was before these social programs, uh, from the standpoint he was standing, uh, for Roe vs. Wade before he was against Roe, uh, Roe vs. Wade…uh…he was…uh for Race To The Top…

Uh…[pause]…he’s for Obamacare and now he’s against it…I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and, and, and wait to see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to…

He should have gone for the jugular. He spent more time juggling and fumbling his words with a bizarre, half-hearted attitude. Get your points down, man. It’s easy if you try.

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Perry said he’s in favor of making English the official language of the U.S. Perhaps he should concentrate on mastering it before the next debate.